


The Truth

by Vinnocent



Series: Morphing Human [5]
Category: Animorphs - Katherine A. Applegate, Being Human (UK), Being Human (US/Canada)
Genre: Adolescent Sexuality, Blood and Gore, F/M, Gen, Psychological Trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-08
Updated: 2014-03-08
Packaged: 2018-01-15 01:17:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,875
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1285774
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vinnocent/pseuds/Vinnocent
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The first original work in the Morphing Human series! As leader, Marco recognizes that his group is fracturing over recent stresses and decides that opening up honest communication should help them trust each other again. But the truth seems to only add to their stress.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Will Out

I've had three to four years of English roughly a dozen times. And there's always the "Six Ws;" the interrogative questions for fully investigating our material (or anything, really). Who is it about? What happened? When did it happen? Where did it happen? Why did it happen? How did it happen?

A dozen sets of English courses and no one has figured out how to spell "How" yet. Point is, I hated those sections because it always lead to my own interrogative questions.

Who am I, really? Who is Rachel? What does it mean to be me?

What is a vampire? What's the boundary between me and it? Which of my mistakes were really beyond my control?

When does this stop? When did it really start? When will I misstep again?

Where does it all go? Where did it come from, really? Where am I trying to take it?

Why?

_Why?_

How?

My name is Rachel, and I have no answers.

* * *

"I have… awkward questions," Marco said, depositing himself against the locker next to mine.

"I thought we weren't supposed to be hanging out," I told him. In addition to Marco's annoying and often right paranoia, the entire group had been on edge and largely non-communicative since freeing Jake of Yeerk infestation. It really didn't seem right for him to start with the person he had least attachment to.

"So bark at me if Melissa walks by," he suggested. "I need help."

That got my attention. "Help?" I repeated.

He glanced around, pushed his hair back, dropped his voice, and mumbled so lowly that you  _had_  to be standing right next to him with vampire hearing to understand it. "We're together. All of us. So the thing that's going on now? That can't keep up. It's a problem."

I had to admit, I was confused. "So why are you coming to me?"

"Because you're a girl."

"Excuse me?"

"I mean that… Look, aren't girls always being, like, overly honest with each other? The best friend of your best friend's friend from choir knows your deepest secrets."

"Yeah, 'cuz all my friends know I'm a bloodsucker." I rolled my eyes and closed my locker. "Well, okay, there's this time, but… Huh."

Marco raised an eyebrow. "'Huh'?" he repeated.

"Well, things tend to… come out, sometimes," I excused, "but it's still not how you think it is."

Marco shook his head. "Nevermind. I'll figure this out." He turned to go.

I grabbed his shoulder. He seemed surprised. I guess, outside of battle, I'd never actually touched Marco before. Especially since the scratch. We're not touchy people, and werewolves are gross. "Hey, sorry. What did you want to know?"

He looked around again, clearly embarrassed. "How do you do it? Open those lines of communication? I mean, no one just spills the truth out out of nowhere, right?"

I shrugged. "For the most part, it's games. This usually gives some deniability, but it also makes it a little more fun and relaxing to confide and to trust and to bond. When so many people carry your burdens and your joys… you carry less. But it's a lot to ask of someone. So… you just pretend like it's not? Like that's not what you're doing? Does that make sense?"

"AWWWOOOOOOO!"

Marco winced bodily. "Yeah, okay. Going now." He squeezed through the crowd like he was escaping the pool.

"YIP! YIP! YIP! YIP!"

I rolled my eyes and glared at Melissa's flunkies, but, for the most part, I ignored them. Marco could fight his own battles.

* * *

I road my bike out to the woods behind Cassie's property, cutting right past the house and clinic/barn. A red-tailed hawk had flown overhead on the way over, so I wasn't surprised to see Marco already there in his morphing outfit. I was surprised to see him pulling on clothes on top of it.

"New favorite bird?" I asked.

"Not really," he said. "I just think it's a good idea to change up every now and then, now that I have three."

I nodded. "Good. Somehow, I don't think it suits you as well as osprey."

Marco just shook his head and laughed. "The conversations we have these days..."

Ax stepped out of his scoop carrying some bits of electronic innards, and I nodded at him. "Hey, Ax! Now, you've got a place of your own, 'Prince Marco' is hoarding stuff here?"

"What?" Marco demanded.

<Cassie and Prince Marco each have sets of artificial skin in places where they expect to commonly demorph and have sets for me as well, since artificial skin seems to be important on your planet,> Ax explained.

I giggled. "You have no idea."

Ax's stalk eyes tilted.

Jake and Cassie walked up together. Didn't I recall Cassie explicitly telling me that he was a jerkface? Hmm, yes, I remember exactly: Jerkface. That was some awkward timing then. Ax continued fiddling with his electronics. I guess four eyes makes you accustomed to splitting your attention. "What's the news?" asked Jake. "Are we acting on the new entrance already?"

Marco shook his head. "Nope, we're hanging out."

"'Hang--'? Marco, you said this was mandatory!"

"Yes, because if I hadn't said that, every single one of you would have bailed. Except maybe Ax, because it's his scoop." He looked around at the group, and Cassie looked away. "So yes, we're all gonna hang out, and get things off our chests, and teach Ax about human culture."

That got both Cassie and Ax's attention. "Teach him what about human culture?" she asked, and he stopped messing with his device for a moment.

"Did I miss something?" Tobias asked, suddenly appearing next to me.

"Marco's being weird," I informed him, leaning an arm on his shoulder. Ax looked at us for a moment, then returned to his device.

"We're all going to play Truth or Dare," said Marco. "We're not going to go off on each other no matter what is said or what happens. Passes are allowed but discouraged. And the game doesn't end until everyone's got everything off their chests."

Tobias laughed. "Are you serious?"

But Jake blanched. "Marco, this doesn't sound like a good idea…"

"Okay, then we'll just keep on not trusting each other, having short fuses, bordering on hating each other," he said with a shrug. "I'm sure that's not a risk to our  _lives_." Jake must have also been hearing Marco's heart pounding away like a sledgehammer, because he took a couple steps back. The blood itself wasn't tempting, but that sound can set off certain instincts. I don't think Marco understood. He glared at him.

And then Marco took a deep breath, looked around everyone, and said, "Okay, I'll start it off." He swallowed hard, his false humor slipping slightly. "Two years ago," he said, "my mother drowned while sailing. I thought. But it was fake. Turns out that she was a Controller." He glanced briefly at Jake, but then up at the trees. "She got herself vamped and then faked the drowning before going off to Space Land. Figured that out when I saw her on the Mother ship. For those who weren't there, this is the face of Visser One." He pulled a small photo out of the folds of his morphing suit and handed it to me and Tobias. I noted as he did the way that Ax moved slightly aside.

"So that's why you've stopped trying to squirm out of it," Tobias joked.

Marco smirked. "Oh, because you lot don't desperately need me."

Jake reached forward to take the photo from me. I looked down at it first. I felt sick.

<What do you plan on doing about it?> asked Ax.

Marco gave a clever wink. "See, that's not how the game is played Ax. One person has their turn, then they pick another participant and ask them 'Truth or Da--'"

"Truth," I said.

Marco blinked at me in confusion. "Uh, that's not exact--."

"I did it," I said.

He looked confused. "Did what?"

"Rachel, stop," Jake whispered, but I shook my head. No, we shouldn't be afraid of our friends. Not this time.

But should they be afraid of us?

"I killed her. Well, bit her and fed her. Changed her." I watched the false humor drain from Marco's face. "Hedrick arranged it. I thought for a moment that she wasn't going to make me, but then she cut open her arm."

Marco looked sick. "She cut open her arm?"

I nodded. "Yes. Deeply. Lots of blood."

"That's all it takes for you?"

I dropped my gaze and nodded again.

Marco was silent for a long time. Finally, he sat on the forest floor. He immediately got up with a swear, kicked something out of the way, and sat once more. "Your turn," he grumbled.

I considered my options and decided that I had nothing to ask of Cassie or Tobias, was not brave enough to go for Jake, and Marco didn't deserve such attention at this point. Besides, teach human culture, right? "Ax, Truth or Dare?"

<Can you explain the purpose of these choices?> he asked.

"If you say Truth, I get to ask you a question and you have to answer honestly, and if you say Dare, I get to tell you to do something," I explained.

"Passes allowed but discouraged," Marco repeated. "This is not an asshole session."

Ax glanced between us with his stalk eyes, then said, <Dare.>

"My kind of man!" I thought about my choices for a moment before saying. "Okay, I want to see an alien morph."

<An alien morph?> he repeated.

"A morph not from earth," I said. "Assuming you have one."

He hesitated. Then, <I do.> He placed his project aside on the ground, then he started shrinking down. I was already so used to his forelegs melting away that it seemed so strange to see them transform as well. His hooves split into gripping hands, and his own hands lost some fingers and knuckles. His upper torso combined with his equine body into a more singular unit. He grew a mouth, which was always a disconcerting sight. His tail lost its blade. He became quite a bit fuzzier. He looked something like a six-legged monkey-kitten, only even less scary. He leapt up onto a tree and skittered up, then jumped through a few more trees.

Cassie giggled in delight. The rest of us reacted as well. Even Jake snorted, and Marco smirked. "Ax! That's wonderful!" Cassie cried. "What is it?"

<A djabala,> he swinging from a branch over her head by his tail. <It is an herbivore from my home, filling a niche somewhat equivalent to your rabbits, I believe.>

"How did you even catch one of those?" Marco said, grinning at last.

<I do not believe that is how the game is played, Prince Marco,> Ax countered. I looked between them. These two were playing at something, weren't they? But didn't that defeat the point? I glanced at Cassie, but she only smiled.

"It's your turn to pick someone, Ax," Cassie reminded him.

Ax considered the group, one by one, with his big djabala eyes. I'm sure it was a more difficult choice when it was your first time playing the game, your were still the newest person in the group, and everyone was still tense. <If it is not too much to ask, I would like to offer the choice to Tobias.>

Tobias, who had been off in his own world again, immediately shot to attention. "What? Uh, sure!" He looked to me. "You mind?"

"No problem," I said with a small smile.

"Then, uh, Truth, I guess, since everyone's seen my ghost tricks," he said, and I told Ax the same.

<How did you become… unseen?> Ax asked. He dropped to the ground and began to demorph.

"Wow, dive right in, huh?" Tobias squirmed slightly. "Uh… I don't know, really. I don't remember. Maybe…" He looked at his hands.

I told Ax and then turned to him. "Maybe what, Tobias?"

"I've been… talking to other ghosts. Now that I know what to look for. I've been careful. No talk about Yeerk stuff. No talking about any of you five. No talking to anyone I've seen hanging around the pool or known Controllers. But I… I wanted to know what I was. What's going on. So I talk, and… It seems like sometimes ghosts remember after a while? Sometimes that even helps them 'find their door,' whatever that means, and move on…" He hesitated. He was obviously a little upset by something. "But it seems like there's a bunch who don't."

I told Ax what Tobias said, which only seemed to confuse him more. Before he could ask more questions, though, Tobias said, "Cassie, Truth or Dare?"

"Truth," she said. "Since that seems to be the point."

Tobias squirmed again next to me. "Why did you know about Visser One?"

"Because I morphed Marco and went to his appartment to cover for his and Jake's absence," she explained. "I saw the pictures, and I recognized her from the Mother ship."

<There were no pictures of Visser One's host displayed at Marco's apartment,> Ax argued.

Cassie looked ashamed. "I know. I put them away before you got there. I'm sorry, Ax. But… I thought you might get mad about it, and I also thought that Marco deserved his privacy. The way I see it, not knowing about the host's family ties doesn't actually endanger us."

"It sort of does," I said. "You don't know what some people will do for family."

Marco didn't protest that. He just eyed me suspiciously.

"Ax…," said Cassie, " _are_  you mad?"

<Yes,> he said, surprising us, <but it may pass. Jake… Truth or Dare.>

"Is Dare even really an option?" Jake snarled.

"Sure," said Marco, grinning. "If you're a wimp."

"Truth," said Jake.

<What did you experience in the Yeerk's fugue?> Ax asked.

Jake shivered, then answered, "His life. A Gedd's life. The torture of being a Hork-Bajir warrior under his control. And then some weird trip at the end."

"But not Tom?" asked Cassie.

<What do you mean 'weird trip'?> asked Ax.

"A trip. Hallucinations," Jake said, shrugging. "But you said it would be rough…"

Ax was tilting his stalk eyes again. <Yes, I did say that. Because it can be difficult to accommodate the memories of past hosts, many of which carry their own traumas, and the experiences of your own enemy. Nothing was said of hallucinations in class.>

Jake swallowed. "Nothing?"

<Nothing.>

"Well… You've never had undead hosts before right?" he said with the fakest smile I'd ever seen.

<That is true,> said Aximili. I don't think he was buying that logic, though.

"What did you see?" asked Cassie, putting a hand on his arm and looking at him with concern.

Jake shoved his hands in his pockets and grumbled, "The devil."

Marco raised his eyebrows. "The same devil that you claim all vampires came from?"

"No, Marco," he snapped. "I'm pretty sure the devil of hell itself and the devil of acid trips are two unique entities."

<What is an--?>

"NO," Jake and Cassie answered at once.


	2. On Matters

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> My name is Tobias, and I don’t remember how I died, but there’s a lot else that I know.
> 
> I know that the Yeerks are invading. Slug-like creatures from another planet that crawl in through your ear canal and take over your brain. Absolutely anyone could be one. Your friend. Your neighbor. That guy you see jogging on your street sometimes. You.
> 
> I know that an alien prince sacrificed his life to save this planet and gave my friends the technology they needed to fight the invasion. It isn’t much. Maybe it won’t do anything at all. But it’s more than we could have hoped for.
> 
> I know that if you told me last year that I would be invisible to most people, but I could toss up serious wind storms and go anywhere I wanted… That my closest friends were century-old vampires that could break walls… that two other friends would gain the ability to turn into any animal they touched… and that soon we’d add the brother of our savior, an alien child just as lost and confused as the rest of us…
> 
> That the six of us are the only force on this planet standing against the Yeerk invasion of Earth? I know that I wouldn’t have believed you.
> 
> But I knew less then.

* * *

Marco-mandated Truth or Dare was probably the worst of Marco's ideas so far. Jake was legitimately just standing there, glaring. Ax was even more awkward back in his Andalite form. Finally, Marco cleared his throat and started to stand again. "Uh, maybe this was--"

"Marco, Truth or Dare?" Jake said. Trust Jake to push the point just as Marco was weaseling out.

Marco considered him for a moment. "Truth," he said at last.

"Are you afraid of me?"

Marco's eyes widened. He shook his head emphatically. "No, man, of course not. Why would you say that?"

"You should be," he hissed.

"Jake…" Rachel murmured. She pulled away from me and started to move closer to him, but he glared at her and she stepped back again.

"You should be," he repeated. He stepped forward and crouched so he was eye-to-eye with Marco. Marco, however, tilted his head quizzically and listened quietly. "You have no idea how many people we've killed. You have no idea the monster inside us. You don't know that--"

"You have the overwhelming urge to tear random passersby in half and find out what their meat feels like in your teeth?" Marco asked flatly. "Can't imagine."

That caught Jake by surprise. I think it caught us all by surprise. "But I--" Jake insisted.

"But _shut up_. I don't care what you've done. You weren't my problem then, and I've got bigger problems now, y'know with the alien invasion and all," Marco joked. "So new rule: Don't murder people anymore unless it's a necessity of war, so I don't have to figure out how to kill my best friend." He glanced in our direction. "Or his cousin."

Rachel made a Boy Scout oath gesture.

Jake gawked at Marco for a couple minutes before Cassie reached over and shut his mouth for him. Jake sat down very suddenly. "Jake, why are you worried about this?" Cassie asked, but, surprisingly, he just pulled his knees up. "Did the Yeerk get to you, too?" Jake put so much effort into playing the big, bad, stoic vampire that I think sometimes we forget that he's a kid like us.

"Jake, whatever he said…" I started to assure him, but he cut me off.

"Tom knows."

Marco went rigid. His eyes were wide. The rest of us were mostly confused. "Tom… knows… what?" Marco asked slowly.

"That I'm the mourned brother of his maternal great grandfather," Jake muttered. "Te-- The Yeerk told him."

Cassie frowned and touched his wrist lightly, while Rachel crossed her arms and leaned against a tree, scowling. "Well, Chapman knows and any vampire-Controller can sense it or easily find out," Cassie said. "It makes sense that he'd find out, as a Controller. I'm sure he--."

"He switched," said Jake. "He was taken against his will. He fought with everything he had. And then… then the Yeerk showed him something _worse_. And he…"

"But I saw him in the cages," I protested.

"There weren't a lot of people _out_ of the cages," said Marco.

Rachel nodded. "Makes sense. Full moon security measure, just in case of…"

"Exactly what happened?" asked Cassie.

"He took up--" Jake was suddenly interrupted by a bright flash! Like a camera but much brighter. We all turned to the source of the flash.

<I apologize,> said Ax, still fiddling with a small nest of gadgetry. <I only meant to test it.>

"Ax, maybe you want to put that away for a while?" Marco suggested.

"Actually, as fun as this has been," said Rachel, "Don't you think it's getting a bit heavy? I'm missing on cookie time with the kids for this."

"Cookie time?" Jake repeated, incredulous.

"Yes, cookie time with Sarah and Jordan. Problem?"

Cassie played with her shoelaces. "I don't think that this was a bad idea. There's just… a lot to digest. We should be together more. We should be more honest." Jake started to pull away, but Cassie grabbed his wrist firmly. "We aren't a danger to each other. We can't afford to be. We won't be as long as we're a team."

Jake stood. "Anyone have anything _else_ to get off their chest before splitting?"

Marco raised his hand.

"I swear on--"

"I wanna know how Ax eats," Marco said.

<What?> Ax demanded.

"That's… kind of really rude," I said.

"But you have to eat, right?" asked Marco. "But… you have no mouth. And we know now that other creatures on your planet do have mouths."

<But, Prince Marco, you have seen me eat before.>

Everyone just sort of looked at him. "Well, this is about to get weird," said Rachel.

"What?" said Marco. "How have I seen you eat?"

<Like this,> said Ax, and he pawed at the ground. When nothing else was said, he walked in a circle.

Marco raised an eyebrow. "Uh, Ax-man, you're not doing anything."

<Yes, I am eating.>

"You're walking."

<Yes.>

"Your hooves?" Cassie realized. "You eat with your hooves?"

<Yes,> said Ax.

"And everybody wants to look at _me_ funny," Rachel groaned. She hit me. "Let's go."

"Why am I going with you?" I asked.

"You have a better thing to do?"

"Well, the hospital ghosts ha--"

"Boring. Come on." Rachel pulled me along, and Jake rolled his eyes at us.

* * *

I watched as Rachel's little "cousins" (actually entirely unrelated even to her false identity) ran around around with tubes of icing, eagerly decorating several cookies at a time and also parts of the kitchen. "They don't… tempt you?" I asked.

Rachel shrugged as she filled her cookie with pink icing. "Just because something looks good, doesn't mean I have to stuff my face."

"Hey, don't call me a pig when you're drawing one!" Jordan countered.

"What?" Rachel looked down at her cookie. "It's a bear."

"I thought it was Hello Kitty," I said.

Rachel frowned.

"Can I… Can I ask you something personal?" I said.

Rachel shrugged. "Do what you like," she said, and Sarah gave her a quizzical look.

"I am?" said Sarah.

"Good," said Rachel. "Don't let Jordan push you around."

"You're the bossy-boss!" Jordan said, pushing at Rachel.

Rachel snorted, took her bright pink bearcatpig, and hopped off the stool. "I think you can manage to supervise yourselves from here on out?"

"Yeah, yeaaaah," Jordan groaned.

"If I get in trouble, I'm taking you down with me," Rachel said, making goofy monster gestures. Jordan rolled her eyes. Sarah pulled her lips into a ghoulish grin.

Snickering, Rachel headed out of the kitchen and then up the stairs to her room. I hesitated, but then she stopped and looked over her shoulder. "Coming?" she asked.

"Why do you want me to hang out with you?"

"I need a reason?" She looked mad or frustrated or something. "Am I doing something wrong?"

"No," I said.

She came back down a few steps, her eyes not leaving mine. "Not every whim I have is murderous. That's not how every story ends. I can make it not. I just have to try."

"You weren't trying the other times?"

Yes, she was mad. "That's not what I said."

"I'm just trying to understand."

"You can just leave," she snarled, hurrying back up the stairs.

I wasn't sure what to do. Obey her or try to make it better? I drifted back to the kitchen, where the girls were still making cookies.

"Why?" Sarah was demanding.

"Because he's a monster. Monsters need blood," said Jordan.

"That's creepy."

"Is not."

"Use the pink. Pink blood is better."

Jordan gave an elaborate sigh, but she picked up the pink icing tube that Rachel had been using. I popped over next to her to see that she had decorated her cookie with a green face, dots of yellow eyes, and a huge, sharp-toothed, yellow grin. It was honestly sort of cute. Like the puppets on Sesame Street.

But as she filled its silly yellow mouth with dayglo gore, I felt a sickness rise in me. My world tilted, phased in and out, splintered… Something was wrong. Something was deeply wrong. I could see it now. Pink icing replaced by dripping red blood. Mine. My blood. My viscera. My insides on the outside.

"Girls, where is Rachel?" asked Naomi, looking exhausted from her work in the home office down the hall.

The cookie was fine. Cute green muppet with pink blood. Jordan immediately snatched it up and shoved it in her mouth.

Naomi frowned. "How many of those have you had already?"

Jordan shrugged.

Naomi sighed. "Great, now I've got to take the time to make rabbit food for dinner or I'm a bad mother. If you see Rachel, tell her that I got a call from her English teacher."

Jordan grinned and saluted. "Will do."

Naomi shook her head. "Clean up so I can cook please. I'll be back in a few minutes."

I popped over to Rachel's room. Her door was open. "Do you still want me gone?" I asked.

"I don't know," she said. "I'll let you know when I decide." I entered and found her sitting at her desk with a copy of _The Man with the Golden Gun_. I closed the door behind me. "What was your personal question?" she asked.

"Um…" I felt uneasy broaching the subject, but… it didn't really help anything to keep sitting around wondering. Right? "Are you and Melissa going out?"

Rachel snorted. "No. What gave you that idea?"

"All the making out?" I answered honestly, confused. That really wasn't a response I had considered.

"What about it?" she countered.

"Well… Isn't that what people in a relationship do?"

"One, yes. Two, they're not mutually exclusive." She folded a bookmark into the book, put it down, and turned to me. "Three, you didn't ask if we had a relationship. You asked if we were going out."

"Those aren't the same thing?" I asked.

She shrugged. "I don't think so. Not in Melissa's case anyway. My feelings regarding her did not come with a sense of obligation."

"What are your feelings for her?" I asked.

She smiled. "That's between me and Melissa."

"Fair enough."

Rachel stood from her chair and came closer to me. "Why are you so curious about us?"

"I… I guess I wanted to know…" I wasn't sure what to say.

"Know what?" And then she kissed me. "Well, that's new and different."

"Rachel, I--"

She kissed me again. Longer that time. Wrapping her arms around my shoulders. I felt chilled by her. "Problem?" she asked.

"You're a predator." I don't know why I said it. It rose from my mouth like the sickness I'd felt boiling earlier.

Rachel considered me for a moment, then sighed. "Yes."

I decided I wanted to be somewhere else afterall.


	3. Set Free (Tobias)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> My name is Aximili-Esgarrouth-Isthill. I was on the Andalite Dome ship sent to the Human Homeworld to attack the Yeerk presence. The Dome was separated from the ship and fell into one of the planet’s oceans. I thought I would die there, but I was saved by several humans, one of which I cannot actually perceive.
> 
> This defies the logic and laws of my people. And yet, I feel compelled… Compelled to acknowledge sacrifices made for me. Compelled to find truth. Compelled to understand this strange world I’ve been abandoned on.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Again, Tobias's speech has been rendered in italics for narrators that cannot hear him well.

* * *

I read through the data from my device on the salvaged Earth computer Cassie had found for me. It was extremely primitive and had required both more salvaging of parts and for my friends to purchase parts for me in order for it to become minimally functional to me. Rachel had not had time to take me to the mall again, so I had gotten several unnecessary (but nonetheless interesting if not currently useful) parts in my requests. Prince Marco, however, complained of his pockets; though, at the time, this was not a human euphemism that I had understanding of.

I had not meant to take the sample reading when I did. I hoped that it would not impact results. Though, if it did, I could try again. I simply disliked the idea of making a mistake.

The ability to be perceived only by certain persons... to interact with the entire environment but not be able to interact with persons who cannot perceive... for raw emotion to affect electronics…

I do not believe that the circumstances are as unreal as my friends seem to think. There are observable realities which must be quantifiable.

I felt the chill of a draft sneak its way into my scoop. I had never made a scoop by myself before; I had only occasionally helped adults build theirs. I am ashamed to say that some things are not as they should be.

The data had confirmed my suspicions. Such a rudimentary test could give me no information on the source of the energy, but I could tell that it interfered with wavelengths and caused charged particles to change their usual habits. To state it simply… His presence caused things to be different.

It made no sense. However, it _was_ quantifiable. These altered wavelengths could easily be measured by more sensitive instruments than my own organs and reflected in a form more suitable to myself. And I already had the parts I needed. A salvaged camcorder, television, radio… Primitive, but I did not believe I would actually need much for such a simple purpose.

Another chill passed over me. The environment of Earth was more temperamental than the inhabitable areas of home.

I took some time, but I was able to gut the parts I needed and rearrange them usefully. <Now,> I said to myself as I propped the device on a shelf and turned it on, <all I have to do is figure out how to get Tobias back here.>

" _Why?_ "

I looked up.

The image before me was flickering, monochrome, and grainy. The voice was flat with noise interference. What was more disturbing, I think, was his lack of expression. His fierce stare.

<You… You are Tobias?>

He tilted his head. " _You can see me?_ "

<Yes.> I pointed to the device. <I made that to see you. You are at the edge of the field just now.>

" _I..._ " Tobias looked at the device, then at me. " _Why?_ "

<I wished to see and hear my teammate,> I answered. <Have I done something wrong?>

" _No,_ " he said. " _No, you have not_."

<I think that…> I hesitated. I do not know why. <I think that I would like to get to know you,> I said.

The spirit before me finally made the facial expression which is the human smile. " _I would like that, too_."


End file.
